‘Operation Sindoor’: How cricket became latest India-Pakistan weapon of war

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Islamabad, Pakistan – When Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressed parliament on July 29, more than two months after the four-day May clash with Pakistan, he hailed India’s military action – dubbed “Operation Sindoor” – as a “victory”, but said it was not over.

“Operation Sindoor remains active and resolute,” Modi said during his 102-minute address.

Sporting gestures turned sour

The two sides have not staged a bilateral cricket series since the 2008 Mumbai attacks, in which gunmen with links to Pakistan killed 166 people, apart from a brief three-match series in India in late 2012.

Pakistan's captain Salman Agha (R) receives the runner up cheque from Asian Cricket Council (ACC) and Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) chairman Mohsin Naqvi during the presentation ceremony at the end of the Asia Cup 2025 Twenty20 international cricket final match between India and Pakistan at the Dubai International Stadium in Dubai on September 28, 2025.

Since then, they have met only in multiteam events. The last final between them was the 2017 Champions Trophy in London, when Pakistan famously upset India at The Oval.

Relations between the nuclear-armed neighbours have deteriorated for years and plunged further this April after the Pahalgam attack in Indian-administered Kashmir, when gunmen killed 26 civilians.

India blamed Pakistan for the killings and, among other measures, withdrew its participation from the six-decade-old Indus Waters Treaty, which governs the six rivers of the Indus basin.

Pakistan denied responsibility, but in early May, the neighbours fought an intense four-day aerial war, targeting each other’s military bases with missiles and drones, the most serious confrontation between them in nearly three decades.

Even before those clashes, sporting ties had frayed: India refused to travel to Pakistan for the Champions Trophy in February, the first major global tournament Pakistan had hosted since 1996.

Hartosh Singh Bal, executive editor at the Indian political monthly The Caravan, said that sport has little capacity to thaw diplomatic tensions when tribalism and hostility are being stoked.

“I have no idea of what developed on the Pakistani side, but if the Indian board wanted cricket to be a vehicle for diplomatic hostility, then they should have opted out of the match,” Bal told Al Jazeera of the Asia Cup final.

“Once they made the choice to play, the players should have avoided the boorishness displayed in avoiding handshakes or not collecting the trophy,” he added.

Fragile cricket diplomacy

The weaponisation of cricket as an instrument of conflict marks a 180-degree shift from how the sport has long functioned on the subcontinent – as a tool of diplomacy, even at the most tense moments in bilateral ties.

In early 1987, weeks after India lined up forces along the disputed border between the neighbours, Pakistan’s military ruler, General Ziaul Haq, visited India under Rajiv Gandhi’s premiership to watch a cricket match.

Even as players of the two sides frequently engaged in heated banter and sledging on the field, the sport served as a rare arena that allowed the neighbours to manage their hostilities in the years that followed. India and Pakistan jointly hosted the 1996 World Cup, and then India toured Pakistan for one-day matches in 1997.

Then, in 1999, Pakistan returned to India for a full Test series, barely eight months after both countries had tested nuclear bombs, sparking nationalist frenzy on both sides of the border and triggering global fears of a conflict involving atomic weapons.

The 1999 visit produced one of cricket’s most memorable scenes. After their victory in Chennai’s MA Chidambaram Stadium, Pakistan’s players jogged a lap around the ground and were met with a standing ovation.

The Pakistani team’s manager then was Shehryar Khan, a former diplomat and a relative of Mansoor Ali Khan Pataudi, India’s former captain.

His son, Ali Khan, an associate professor at the Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS), said that governments have historically tried, sometimes discreetly, to use cricket to cool hostilities. This has now changed, he added.

“The Indian government’s hostility towards Pakistan is unprecedented. They may have their reasons, but the poisoning of minds has spread to a much greater part of the population,” Ali Khan told Al Jazeera.

He suggested that after the Pahalgam attack, calls to boycott the match meant that once New Delhi opted to play, the easiest way to blunt domestic backlash was to show extra hostility on the field.

“I don’t think you can pin the blame on the Pakistan team on this occasion. They did not initially behave in a hostile manner that was outside the spirit of the game, and of sporting encounters overall,” Khan, who is also the author of Cricket in Pakistan: Nation, Identity, and Politics, added.

Politics eclipses cricket

The May confrontation involved aerial engagements and the use of missiles and drones. Pakistan said it shot down at least six Indian jets. India said it damaged Pakistani airbases and degraded air-defence assets.

Prime Minister Syed Yusuf Raza Gilani of Pakistan and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh of India wave to spectators prior to the start of the 2011 ICC World Cup second Semi-Final between India and Pakistan at Punjab Cricket Association (PCA) Stadium on March 30, 2011 in Mohali, India. (Photo by Daniel Berehulak-Pool/Getty Images)

The ceasefire on May 10, which Pakistan says was brokered by the United States, a claim India rejects, did not end the narrative battle.

Each side framed the episode as a vindication of their positions. Pakistan highlighted aerial successes and praised the US president for “brokering the peace”, nominating him for the Nobel Peace Prize. India insisted that its superiority had stopped the escalation, without any third-party intervention.

Modi, in his July 29 speech, said that a Pakistani military official had “pleaded” with Indian forces to stop. “Their officer told ours, ‘Don’t hit us any more; we can’t suffer any longer’,” the Indian prime minister said.

Bal and other commentators argue that Modi used the crisis to score political points. “There is nothing that Modi will not milk for political gain,” the magazine editor said.

Former Pakistani High Commissioner to India Abdul Basit agreed.

“The war hysteria from his viewpoint is also necessary for domestic politics. There are elections in Bihar next month, and state elections next year,” he said, referring to upcoming state elections in one of India’s largest states, and subsequent polls.

Pakistani political analyst Cyril Almeida suggested that Modi had been rattled by international reactions to the May clash, after which Islamabad appears to have diplomatically sold its narrative better.

“In punching down on sportsmen, he seems keen to change the narrative in whatever small way he can,” Almeida told Al Jazeera.

Camaraderie turns cold

Despite the chill between governments, relationships among many players have usually been cordial.

Before Pakistani players were excluded from the Indian Premier League, the world’s biggest franchise cricket league, after the 2008 Mumbai attacks, several had featured in the inaugural season and won admiration.

Subsequently, despite meeting only in multi-team events, players from both teams have shown camaraderie on the field, with iconic Indian players Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma particularly popular in Pakistan.

But with those older stars no longer on the team, and the arrival of a newer generation, analysts say the personal bonds that once softened political friction are weakening.

Ali Khan argued that earlier generations shared a more sporting outlook, born of more frequent contact, while the present generation has had fewer opportunities to build ties.

“I also feel that the environment is so hostile in India that no one would risk opposing what is essentially a government directive to maintain a very hostile stance towards Pakistan,” he said.

“So had those senior players, such as Kohli or others, still been in the team, I think they would have struggled to take a different path, even if they didn’t necessarily want to do that.”

Livelihood over rivalry?

While the men’s teams are not scheduled to meet again any time soon, the women’s sides are due to face each other in Sri Lanka on October 5, during the Women’s World Cup, hosted by India.

The broader calendar, however, is constrained by politics. Following India’s absence from Champions Trophy matches in Pakistan – India’s matches and the final were hosted in Dubai at the BCCI’s insistence – the PCB protested. An agreement was reached that Pakistan would not travel to India for tournaments through 2027, affecting events such as the Women’s World Cup and the 2026 men’s T20 World Cup, and would play its matches at neutral venues as India did during the Champions Trophy.

For Ali Khan, the difference between the 1999 tour and today is the relative unwillingness of both governments to re-establish contact.

“There was little of the hostility amongst the general population that we see today,” he said. “Unfortunately, today, we are in uncharted territory. Relations have never been worse, and… for an extended period. People-to-people contacts have been severed. I see no hope of a reversal unless the leadership on both sides shows strength and courage to look beyond themselves and their narrow interests,” he added.

Nooruddin is less pessimistic. While he condemned the open hostilities visible at the tournament, he argued that most citizens in both countries care more about livelihoods than grand gestures of rivalry.

“Whipping up nationalistic fervour only benefits the politicians who seek to distract and divide, rather than unify and govern. It is hard to be optimistic in the current moment, but leaderships eventually do change, and, when they do, new possibilities for cooperation emerge,” the Washington, DC-based academic said.

But Islamabad-based Almeida warned that Modi’s return to power last year for a third term, which runs until 2029, means rapid change is unlikely any time soon.

Some analysts in Pakistan had hoped a third term would push Modi towards a legacy of peacemaking. Instead, Almeida said, the Modi of 2025 appears to be an “unreconstructed figure who seeks dominance, not accommodation”. Even in cricket.

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